Heatline visualization of natural convection in an inclined square porous enclosure with sinusoidal boundary conditions

Convection in an inclined square porous enclosure with sinusoidally varying wall temperatures is visualized and analyzed by the heatline concept. The Darcy model is used in the mathematical formulation for the porous layer and the COMSOL Multiphysics software is applied to solve the dimensionless governing equations. The governing parameters considered are the amplitude ratio, 0.0 ≤ σ ≤ 1.0, the phase deviation, 0 ≤ P ≤ p, the inclination angle of the enclosure, 0. ≤ φ ≤ 90., and the Rayleigh number, 50 ≤ Ra ≤ 1000. Generally, decreasing the inclination angle was found to increase the number of cells in the enclosure and decrease the heat transfer rate. Combination of the sinusoidal and cosinusoidal temperature profiles on the vertical walls produced the highest heat transfer rate.